Freeday Thursday

Thursday was Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year and a day off for our school! Being just about on the point of collapse, my family and I did the reasonable thing that busy people with a random free Thursday do.
We went to the beach (and yarn shopping).
I didn't bring my camera....(I have got to work on this blogging thing) but I can tell you it was gorgeous. We waded in the water, watched the surfer dudes do their thing, and found this cool shop on the pier that sells everything from psychedelic rainbow stuffed dolphins to seashell bracelets to Coke in glass bottles!
Seriously. My parents tell me that ALL coke was sold in glass bottles when they were kids. I'm so jealous! (My mom also got milk delivered from the milkman that still had cream on top.....IN GLASS BOTTLES TOO. Plus, they live in Ireland--land of the sheep and therefore land of the WOOL--plus her mom can knit--plus vintage clothing makes me unreasonably happy.....I was born in the wrong decade)
But I'm getting off track here. "We don't care about your day off" I can hear y'all whining. "Show me knitting. SHOW ME YARN!" Of course I will, voices in my head.
The haul--photographed late at night on a point and shoot, artfully arranged on my living room floor. I've always admired those bloggers who can take a picture of a dust bunny and make it somehow artful.....they are not me.

 -1 skein Noro Silk Garden, color 84 because I recently dug up a pattern on how to make a Noro beanie.
-1 skein sock yarn in the exact colors of a fall day. They also really remind me of foods, but that could be because this yarn is so yummy I want to eat it. (marshmallow.....cocoa....caramel....cinnamon toast....cranberry....mmm)
-1 old back issue of Interweave magazine because it has pretty things in it and an interesting article on reversible cables.
-2 sets of needles on opposite ends of the fancy needle spectrum, from Susan Boyle the dollar store favorite to Addi sock needles because it was all they had and also? I will ace self defense class with these.
-1 neat little bottle of Soak wool wash, which is a lot better than my current system of trying to block a scarf with the power of my mind and praying that things I knit never get dirty.
The big ball of gray wool used to be the sleeve of a sweater, but more on that in a bit.

Close-up of the Noro: this little beaut is absolutely chock-full of gorgeous autumn colors. It feels a little rough, but the colors were so pretty I couldn't resist....we shall have to see what the finished product is like!

Roasty-toasty sock yarn. It's so beautiful I kind of just want to carry it around and pet it.

 Ok, this qualifies as "a bit." Now about that gray yarn. I feel immensely guilty for frogging someone else's work, especially because they are probably a far more talented knitter, but there you have it. I was surfing the great wide internets and recently discovered a tutorial on how to recycle yarn from an old sweater. My mother donated a beautiful cardigan made of soft gray wool that she never wore--she paled somewhat as she saw the tangled and unraveling mess as I enthusiastically attacked it, but rallied when she saw the skein of yarn emerging.

 Here is a really great tutorial for this, and so is this one. I tried to use them, but ran into some issues:

 While the internet tutorials were excellent, I have to tell you bloggers? THERE WAS NO STINKING LITTLE SEAM THREAD. So I just kind of attacked it until I had a sleeve separated from the body and then I unraveled it. Seemed to work.

Infinitely bad picture. Basically I just wound the yarn around the chair to prevent meanness and carpal tunnel from winding the thing into a ball. The odd fishlike thing on the rug is the sleeve.
Now, I tackle the other sleeve, the back, and the fronts! I'm going to make the Cable Cardigan I showed you guys last time from it. Wish me luck!
<3 Maggie